New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s bodyguards say they had to do her shopping

The bodyguards of the mayor of New Orleans have revealed that they had to hold her bag, do her shopping and take her daughter to the hairdresser.

LaToya Cantrell’s behavior has been exposed after police launched an internal investigation into Officer Jeffrey Vappie after it was discovered that he was spending time with the married mother of one at her grace and favor apartment in the exclusive French Quarter.

Vappie’s wife has since sued for divorce citing an affair dating back to May 2021. Cantrell claims their relationship was “strictly professional.”

However, bodyguards who spoke to the New Orleans Police Department as part of the Vappie investigation described Cantrell as a fierce and demanding boss who was too familiar with her security team and expected them to act as her servants.

It comes as an effort to impeach the Democratic lawmaker who failed on Tuesday, despite receiving cross-party support. Cantrell previously outraged voters when she spent taxpayer money on first-class tickets to Switzerland, claiming the economy was “unsafe” for black women.

Sergeant Wondell Smith, who spoke to NOPD as part of its investigation into Vappie’s timesheets, said that if he crossed paths with Cantrell “he’d run his ass from head to toe.” Dirty mouth, I call it.

Another officer, Kristy Johnson-Stokes, told investigators they would be asked to pick up her daughter from school, take her credit card to buy gifts at the department store, and water her plants.

In recordings obtained by fox 8 of the investigation, Johnson-Stokes told police: ‘I don’t think anyone will tell you [Cantrell], ‘No ma’am. I’m not going to water your plants for you.

‘I mean, I’ve been asked, ‘Hey, Miss Kristy? Can you take my card and go to this department store… and have them wrap it up and come back, so we can go to this event and I can have a gift?”

Johnson-Stokes said she felt she couldn’t turn down these “assistant-type” demands despite knowing it wasn’t her job.

“I think the main thing for the team, especially for the guys, who was holding that bag? Like, we need our hands, you know? Like, we’re not supposed to hold your bag. But, you know, you might need an assistant for that,” he said.

Even when Cantrell was out of town, Johnson-Stokes said the routine was the same and they were expected to help their family.

The security team would work long hours and were required to care for Cantrell and his family at all hours of the day.

They would ask us to pick up their daughter. Sometimes bringing her daughter to school, sometimes picking her daughter up from school. Take her to tutoring, take the daughter to hair appointments, take the daughter to sports practices, pick her up from sports practices,’ Johnson-Stokes said.

‘So whatever he’s telling us to take her, we’ll most likely pick her up. This is how it would be on that day, especially, the afternoons would be full.’

Smith, who worked on the mayor’s security detail for 18 years, said Cantrell abruptly removed him from his position without her providing any reason.

He was the highest-ranking officer on the team, reported to others, and helped mediate disputes and oversaw timesheets submitted for approval.

Smith told investigators that if he had been on the team when Vappie was spending long hours in the French Quarter apartment, he would have taken on both the bodyguard and the mayor.

He told NOPD: ‘To this day, I can’t tell you why I was transferred. It’s not that I can’t tell you, let me rephrase it. I have no fucking idea. I know it hurt like hell. I know that.

Smith said he had just dropped Cantrell off at a function before he got the call.

‘All day (we were) talking, laughing and, you know, having a good day. So it caught me off guard. I’m not going to lie,’ he told police.

When Cantrell got rid of Smith, he didn’t replace him with another high-ranking officer, meaning no one monitored his security team’s time sheets.

Following his transfer, Smith retired from the NOPD in 2021.

It is presented as a petition to force Cantrell into a recall election that failed on Tuesday.

Although the petition sheets contained more than 67,000 signatures, most were declared invalid by the registrar.

Governor John Bel Edwards announced that only 27,243 of the signatures were valid, about 18,000 short of what was needed to force a referendum.

Signatures can be rejected for a multitude of reasons, including if they are dated after the due date, if the title page is mislabeled, if there is misinformation or profanity, if the person is not from the parish, or if the signature it is a duplicate.

“My administration has always remained focused on addressing the truly pressing issues facing our city,” Cantrell said in a statement.

‘Now, with the failed recall division officially behind us, we must heal and recommit to working collaboratively to continue the progress we’ve made to reduce crime, increase public safety, build a more sustainable city and resilient and create economy and job opportunities that benefit all of our people.’

The number of signatures needed to force removal has been debated in court.

The organizers of the retreat sued the officials, saying that the lists were inflated with hundreds of deaths and thousands of people who had moved.

Earlier this month, New Orleans Civil District Court Judge Jennifer Medley approved a lawsuit settlement agreement that significantly reduced the number of signatures needed to force a recall election.

However, after The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate revealed that the judge herself had signed the recall petition, Medley said another judge would decide whether she should be removed from the case.

‘The recall campaign has been divisive, dishonest and opaque, to say the least. It’s time for New Orleanians to improve our city the way we do best: by coming together,” Maggie Carroll, Cantrell’s longtime campaign manager, said in a written statement Tuesday.

Recall efforts against Cantrell, the first woman to serve as New Orleans mayor, began last August, less than a year after her second term began.

She was easily re-elected in 2021, but has since faced numerous problems, including violent crime, patchy progress on major street projects, and unreliable garbage collection.

Questions have also been raised about his travel expenses and his personal use of a city-owned apartment.

The City Council recently opened an investigation into the use of public money to send an email to city residents earlier this year touting Cantrell’s accomplishments.

Cantrell has repeatedly criticized the recall effort as a Republican-led attack on the administration of a black Democratic woman.